He was so tired. He had been tired ever since that stupid illness a year ago. His mind, of late, refused to sparkle, to contrive. Perhaps he needed a rest. A month, perhaps, in some quiet place, alone. After all, a man had only so much energy. If he rested a while, he could think of ways to make his children even more secure. Now he thought of the Prescott stock which Jay Regan held; he thought of the interest he must soon pay. He closed his eyes.
He heard a brisk step on the marble floor between the rugs. He looked up, eagerly. His furrowed face broke into a delighted smile. His son, Thomas, with his jaunty air, his jocose grin, was approaching him. Thomas swung his big body with speed, if with awkwardness. There was no grace about him, only a clumsy physical strength. Nevertheless, William regarded him fatuously. He said, fondly: “Hello, Tom. Finished your talk?”
Thomas was surprised. He threw himself down in a chair opposite his father, and stared. “Talk?” he said. “With whom?”
“Why, I suppose with Matt,” he said, somewhat confused.
Thomas burst out into his usual raucous laughter. He understood. He allowed himself a few reflections of ridicule on this doddering old fool’s illusions. “Oh, sure. We had our talk. Looking forward to tomorrow night.”
A warm glow permeated William. “One hundred people, for dancing and a midnight supper. You children have a lot of friends, I’m pleased to see. You, Tom, especially, are very popular. And Julie.” He paused. There had been something about Julia lately which had harassed him. He could not remember just what it was, except that the girl’s lovely bloom had become somewhat dimmed. He said: “A six-piece orchestra from Philadelphia. I was told it was the best. I hope you will enjoy yourselves.”
“Oh, sure,” repeated Thomas. He looked at his father with his narrow brown eyes; they glittered thoughtfully. “Look, Pa,” he said, “I wanted to talk to you, tonight.”
Immensely gratified, William exclaimed: “Why, of course!” It seemed to him that he had had many intimate conversations with Thomas. There had always been open fires, and confidences. He was certain of this. He settled himself comfortably in his chair. All his tiredness was gone. “You don’t need money again, do you, Tom?” he asked, indulgently.
“Well, I always need that,” laughed Thomas. He could use a hundred. But he decided to postpone the asking for a little while. William, however, was already taking out his wallet, pleasantly thick. He removed two one hundred dollar bills, and tossed them affectionately to his son. Thomas caught them deftly. “Why, thanks,” he said, and grinned again. “You know how it is: all those presents for Christmas. And my other obligations.”
William beamed. His face, usually so somber and so brooding, shone with gratification. “I know, I know,” he said, though he did not really know. He could not remember whether Thomas had made him a gift. But it was there, surely, amid the heap on his table in his dressing-room.
Thomas carefully tucked away the bills. He took out a pack of cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke, Pa?” he asked. Without waiting for permission, he lit the cigarette, leaned back, crossed his legs.
He stared up at the ceiling, “crawling,” as he put it, with painted nymphs and cherubs. He did not look at his father when he said: “I’ve been thinking. You need help, Pa. You know how interested I am in the business. I’ve read all those books you sent me. I’ve read others. See—I’m over twenty-one. I’m wasting my time at Yale. Oh, I like it, and I have a lot of friends there, and I’m not saying I don’t enjoy every minute. But,” and his loud rough voice slowed, “I want to go into the business with you. Now. I don’t want to go back to college. You need me, Pa. You really do.”
William, listening to this, was torn between delight and dismay, between gratification and disappointment. He said: “But, Tom, I want you. to complete your education. I’m not saying that I’m not—overcome by your offer to help me. You work every summer in the office, and in the mills. I can’t tell you how that pleases me. After all, part of the business will be yours some day. But I want you to be a gentleman, too. I want you to have your education. You have only eighteen months more. It would be unfair to you to permit you to throw all that away.”
Thomas puffed placidly on his cigarette. He was relieved. He had expected a categorical refusal, and considerable shouting. This was going well. He made his face assume deep seriousness. He leaned towards his father.
“Pa, you know how I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You’ve done too much for all of us. You’ve given up your whole life. It’s time now one of us did something for you. And I insist upon bearing my part of the obligation.”
At this, William was so moved he could not speak.
Furtively, he took off his spectacles and rubbed them. Thomas saw that his father’s hands were trembling. He grinned to himself, cunningly.
But it was not over yet. William clung stubbornly to his idea of what was best for his son.
He began to speak, a little hoarsely: “Tom, when you talk that way it does something to me. I can’t tell you. But you’re young. You don’t know what is best. Not to graduate would be a lifelong liability for you. Only eighteen months.”
In eighteen months it might be too late, thought Thomas, grimly.
“Pa, please consider what I want,” he pleaded. That always made his father listen, intently. “I don’t want to go back. I want to go into the business. You’ve been ill. Let me take some of the responsibility, in minor things, off your shoulders. I owe it to you. Now, please wait, Pa. You always say we owe you nothing. We do. But let’s put that aside a minute, and just think of what I want, personally. I want to go into the business at once. You’ve said I do a good job in the summers. I can do a much better job, if I’m there all the time. That’s what I want. I’ll go back to Yale, if you insist, but I can tell you I’ll be damned miserable. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No,” murmured William. Beyond that, he could not speak. His loneliness had gone; he was warm inside, as if new life had been given him. His son loved him, had observed his weariness, wished to spare him. He thought of Tom permanently beside him, in his office. He saw a Tom slightly older, efficient and absorbed, a Tom he could trust. Emptiness had fled away; the immense room was full of light and comfort.
Thomas’ big features expressed seriousness, and concern for his father. He reached over, patted his father’s knee. The old boy could never resist that, thought Thomas with inner amusement. What a fool this was, weakly dependent upon the love of children.
“Only eighteen months,” pleaded William. But he was weakening. And then he saw the face of Eugene Arnold. He said: “Tom, I’m a fool even to listen to you. But if that is what you want, I’ll put my own disappointment aside. After the holidays, you can come into the business. As my secretary.” He paused, then said recklessly, with a deep smile of pleasure and content: “At fifty dollars a week.”
Now he was elated, full of excitement. Thomas pulled his chair closer. Again, he patted his father’s knee, heartily.
“I’m getting old,” said William. “I wouldn’t tell it to anyone except you, Tom, but there’re times when I’m infernally tired. You’re a brilliant young feller. I could pass along a great deal to you.”
“That’s the ticket!” exclaimed Thomas. He stood up, strutted up and down, grinning at his father. “Look at these shoulders. They’re big and willin’. They’re for you, Pa. All for you.”
William followed him with eyes that shone with emotion. He laughed richly.
“What a rascal you are, Tom!” he said.
A rascal. Thomas contemplated the word with cynical satisfaction. There was no pity in Thomas when he stopped before his father, leaned down and put his hand on William’s shoulder, and pressed it vigorously.
“William Prescott and Son,” he said.
Again, William was profoundly moved. But he said: “William Prescott and Sons. There’s Matt, too, you know.”
This so amused Thomas that it was all he could do to keep from laughing outright
into his father’s face. It was a struggle; to help overcome it, he drew out his watch. “Nine o’clock,” he said, ruefully. “And I am due at Mary Blake’s home in fifteen minutes. Wish I could call it off.”
Mary Blake was the daughter of one of the richest “outsider” coal families. The Blakes always came for the holidays to their home on the mountain overlooking the city. William almost smirked with pleasure. The girl would inherit at least a million dollars. He expanded his chest, proud and smug. A pretty little baggage, too. He was about to say this to Thomas and then he wondered whether young men called girls “baggages” these days. He did not know. He contented himself with saying: “A very nice girl.”
“And a million dollars isn’t to be sneezed at,” said Thomas, winking.
“It never was,” laughed William.
When Thomas had gone, a warmth lingered about William, and he sat there alone, smiling, no longer hearing the wind at the windows, not feeling the bitter silence. He was still smiling when he glanced up to see Matthew before him, Matthew who moved with no more sound than a shadow.
“Matt!” said William.
“Father, I want to talk with you,” said Matthew. His voice seemed to come from a long distance.
“Well, sit down, sit down, my boy,” said William. The warmth in him increased. His children were remembering him; they were coming to him, as children ought always to come to their father, in affection and in search of understanding.
Understanding Matthew, however, was a trifle difficult. He was, by nature, “quiet.” He was a “genius.” One could not expect such as he to display Thomas’ exuberance and vitality. William’s illusions again rushed to help him. He seemed to recall that, as a child, Matthew had sat near his knee, silent, but depending upon his father for help and comfort.
Matthew sat down, stiff and straight, and looked at William with eyes that never appeared to see one. “I want to go away,” he said, and it was as if he spoke in a dream. “I must go away. At once, Father.”
CHAPTER XLIV
Slowly, the warmth about William retreated. He could say nothing to Matthew. He could only look at his son, and then there was a confused clamoring in him, a rushing together of wordless thoughts against the very bones of his skull. He said to himself, putting the back of his hand against his forehead: I am ill, again. He thought of Dr. Banks, but the thought was lost, and he forgot the doctor.
He dropped his hand; it fell heavily to his knee. It was the gesture of an old sick man. The furrows in his face deepened; his shoulders bent forward; his mouth sagged in an expression of great and hopeless pain. He still could say nothing to Matthew. Matthew was regarding him without expression, and it was this, now, which seemed to William more dreadful than anything else.
He said, painfully, after a long time: “Why must you go away, Matt? What is it you want?” He waited. Matthew did not move. William drew a deep breath. “You have only to say what you want, Matt, and I’ll—I’ll get it for you, buy it for you—”
“I know,” said Matthew. He turned his head aside. He repeated: “I know. And that’s why I’ve got to go away.”
“I don’t understand you, son,” said William, faintly.
Matthew was silent. Then, very slowly, he folded one hand over the other in a movement which, to William, was one of inexplicable desolation.
“I never denied you anything,” said William.
He looked at Matthew’s hands, and waited.
“I never asked you for anything,” said William. He moved his head, as if to escape from some torment.
“I know,” said Matthew, lifelessly.
“Yet, you want to go away.”
The wind was struggling, loud against the windows once more. It was a threatening voice and, to William’s ears, it had a portentous sound. Again, he moved his head in that search for escape.
“You want to leave your home, your family, your father, Matt. Why? Just tell me why?”
Matthew said to himself: I can’t tell you. I haven’t any words for you. You could understand, if you let yourself. But you won’t ever let yourself.
He said: “Father, I want to go to Italy.”
“Italy!” William looked up quickly. The pain retreated from him. He felt that he had been about to understand Matthew; he had known that he could not bear that understanding. “Why, of course!” he exclaimed. “It’s your painting, isn’t it, Matt? Well, why didn’t you say so in the beginning? Of course, you may go to Italy. After you come home again, in the spring.”
“No,” said Matthew. “Not in the spring, Father. Now. It has to be now.”
William smiled affectionately. “Genius pushing you, eh? I can understand that. But you can’t break off your education in the middle of the year, can you? It wouldn’t be the right thing. So, shall we plan for you to go in June, and not return until September? I might even go with you,” he added, his smile indulgent. He felt that he had just escaped some awful revelation, and there was a kind of hysteria in him. “We’ll travel all over Italy, Matt. Maybe Julie will want to go on to Paris, with your mother. Well, now, we’ll make it a family party, Tom, and you—”
“No,” said Matthew.
He stood up. He stood by his chair, his hands hanging at his sides. “You must understand, Father. You must understand that I’ve got to go away alone, perhaps for a long time, perhaps even for years. No,” he added, “you won’t understand. But I thought I ought to tell you, anyway. I’m going. I’ll find some way, even if you won’t help me.”
William tried to get to his feet, but an overpowering weakness made him drop back. “You won’t say why, but you want to leave—to leave everything I’ve given you, everything I’ve worked for.”
“Yes,” said Matthew.
William looked at the lamplight and firelight on the marble walls, at the scarlet curving of the draperies, at the rich rugs on the floor, the statues, the lamps, the priceless paintings, the ivories, the gilt on the green and red sofas and chairs, on the Venetian mirrors, the embossed figures on the mighty oval ceiling—at everything he had bought for his children. The great roaring had again invaded his mind. What was it for which Matthew was famishing? For William, though he had at first denied it, had seen the desperate, muted hunger on his son’s face, and it was from this that he had turned away.
I ought, he thought confusedly, to have insisted that he go to church when he was a child, not just occasionally, but regularly. He ought to have had some religion. They all ought to have had some religion. I don’t know. I don’t seem to know anything anymore. But I think there is something in the Bible about children honoring their fathers and their mothers—perhaps in religion there is something for a man to hold to—
“I don’t know anything,” he muttered.
Matthew’s pale yellow brows contracted. His eyes became curiously intent upon his father, as if seeing him for the first time. His hand closed over the back of the chair beside him.
William’s head dropped. He shook it slowly from side to side, as if in sick denial.
“I never asked anything of my children,” he said. “I knew you owed me nothing, and that I owed everything to you. It seems it wasn’t enough.” He lifted his head. He repeated: “It wasn’t enough, was it, Matt?”
Matthew’s hand tightened on the chair. Father and son regarded each other in a long silence.
“Tell me, Matt,” said William, almost in a whisper, “where I have failed. Failed you, failed perhaps all my children. I want to know, Matt. I don’t know how I’ve failed, but it seems I have.”
Matthew did not answer. He did not, however, look away from his father.
“My whole life belonged to all of you. For me, there was nothing else,” said William. It was hard and painful for him to speak. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Matthew.
“I’ve really had no other existence,” William went on, in dull wonder. “Everything was only for you. I believed I owed you that, that every father owed his child
ren that! Nothing was ever demanded of any of you.” He paused.
The light which had come into Matthew’s eyes had dwindled back to dullness again. He said: “Yes. That is why I want to go to Italy.”
Once more William moved his head slowly from side to side in a distress for which he had no words or understanding. He linked his fingers together on his knee.
Matthew said: “I’ll need very little money, Father.” His voice was expressionless. “I don’t want to ‘travel in style’. I want to find some small place, and perhaps just live there for a few months or so, by myself.”
William came briefly to life: “That’s ridiculous, Matt. You’re my son. I’ll send you a good check every month. You’ll live at the best hotels—see something of life.” His smile was painful. “‘Very little money’! Nonsense. You can have anything you want. Besides, there are emergencies sometimes. Emergencies, too, have a way of avoiding anyone with a full purse. Now, where in Italy do you want to go? Rome? A young man like yourself would naturally prefer Rome. Do you remember that hotel, not far from the Borghese Gardens? What is that street? Via Vittorio Veneto? You’ll meet many of our friends there, in the spring, after you’ve made your tour.”
Matthew’s fingers beat a slow tattoo on the back of the chair. Something which had been in him, briefly, had gone.
William became determinedly animated. “That girl you liked last summer, Matt. Martha Pierce? Pierce, yes. Great friends of the Blakes, aren’t they? Well, it seems to me that her father told me, last summer, that he and Mrs. Pierce and Miss Martha were thinking of touring Europe this spring. He owns all those mines—Pierce. I’ll drop him a line in Pittsburgh, tomorrow, and tell him that I’d appreciate it if he would make a point of seeing you, in Italy—he and his family.”
Matthew stirred. “Thank you, Father,” he said.
Rome. He would not go to Rome. He would not see the Pierces. The very thought was a weariness to him. He forced himself not to think; if he did so, he would lose this precarious volition to go away.
Let Love Come Last Page 39
